Choking may be his choice, however, reference to erotic asphyxia unintentional?

There’s method behind this madness–

I sniff a campaign (coming from as far away as Rome) to whip up anti-Obama sentiment among Roman Catholics for the election season.

It’s about funding those faith based programs, based on Sex is Evil religious freedoms. The church is sure this time they’ll keep those kids tamped down.

Let us refrain from choking the bishop lest we all go blind.

Time for the Catholics to lose their tax exempt status. It’s a wash for me though. What the Catholics are doing motivates me to vote for Obama but the fact that he won’t revoke their tax exempt status discourages me from doing so, so I’m still where I was, which is leaning Green.

Good morning, pups. Mr. Kristof is flying solo, since Ms. Collins is off today. In “She Has a Pimp’s Name Etched on Her,” he says across America, pimps are branding their victims like cattle and selling them like property. Finally, there are hints of progress.

Here he is.

The coffee and tea are ready, and I’ve got a variety of bagels with cream cheese this morning. We’re heading into another dry period here, so I’m off to water the things that have to be watered lest they shrivel up and die. Have a great day.

Mother Church owns about 20% of all hospital beds in the United States. Let’s remember where Cardinal Dolan is coming from.

Thanks for that. Wow! How abominable! Even worse is I expect one of our morning trolls to come along and defend that practice as free enterprise.

Maybe Dolan thinks that if the Republicans are in charge they’ll legalize the buggering of boys by the priesthood. It’s up to rank and file Catholics to push back against this but I have my doubts.

Maureen Dowd:

The church leaders headed to court hope to undermine the president, but they may help him. Voters who think sex is only for procreation were not going to vote for Obama anyway. And the lawsuit reminds the rest that what the bishops portray as an attack on religion by the president is really an attack on women by the bishops.

Thanks, Marion. I see a lot of references to the internet as an enabler for the sex slave trade, have very mixed feelings about imposing some kind of restriction on the internet because it’s used by bad people, though.

Rank and file Catholics have saved the Catholic church from itself before.

That’s what excommunication threats are for.

sorry, forgot to mention that this is Ruth this morning, on spuds computer.

Yet they still haven’t managed to move the church into the eighteenth century, much less the twenty-first!

E J Dionne on Morning Joke about it now.

My morning irony was an outraged email from a FOX “News’ watcher taking Bill Press to task for daring to suggest that FOX “News” viewers are the least informed segment of society, (how dare he mention somebody’s study!), and then proceeded to tell him that it’s the liberals who are uninformed, having voted for an illegal, (Obama the Kenyan), who is a Muslim and “never became a citizen of the United States”. This was either high parody or just a conservative being true to her ideology.

Gotta go to work!

That’s a pity.

Good morning all.

These have to be the same people who rage about such differences in taste as McDonalds vs. Burger King fries.

It would potentially be helpful if they actually initiated the “.xxx” idea that folks have suggested, and then went after the porn merchants who didn’t use it.

I once heard that the Catholic Laity “voted with their checkbook”. We fund our Bishop’s activities with an annual appeal. I used to think that my contribution was also symbolic of my support. However, I stopped making contributions when I learned that any shortfall in the fundraising goal had to be made up from our Parish Church. In other words, the Bishops claim the first dollar that we put in the collection basket, an unavoidable tax that must be paid before anything else is done. These guys really are insulated from their Parishioners. Short of leaving the Church, I have no idea of how to influence a Bishop.

Short of leaving the Church, I have no idea of how to influence a Bishop.

For some of them, having the right pictures would do it.

The paid ads in many sites are evidently the source of much of the trafficking tho, and those are unrelated to the site’s tag line. Imposing something would require surveillance, and that’s a rub.

DOLAN: That’s rather superficial [...] It still gives no attention to these choking mandates, this choking definition of religion that we find to be so strangling.

does he have any idea what he’s asking for?

suppose the government did NOT ave “a choking definition of religion”

he would have to compete with cults in every neighborood, either all getting the same tax break his church gets or his church getting nothing like they do

I wonder if they would rather have “no choking mandates” but have to pay taxes on their property

Here’s a bit of good news.

Of course, the U.S. will quash the whole thing.

popeyes fries are the best

I like the approach Henry VIII and the French Revolution took in their “dealings” with the Catholic Church.

Do they make you passionate too? (no, about fries)

We’re not surveilled enough.

You’re allowed to eat all the french fries you want, as long as you make them from scratch at home.

If we’d just use our phones to chat, it would be so much easier.

And bake them — and only eat two.

Hey! that’s our freedom you’re impinging on.

What university could turn down funding for this program?

That’s right. In red states, they don’t change the grease too often.

UC Santa Cruz — The Banana Slugs

do I have to grow the potatoe too?

can I buy popeye’s batter?

* wonders if they will deep frie in olive oil*

I don’t understand the reference.

There’s a potato chip brand that’s fried in olive oil. Delish.

We used to make our own ff at home when I was a kid. Those were the days.

hey ecahn, you’re gonna get a real kick out of this
remember a few days ago you asked tongue in cheek, “I wonder if the gop to say the solution to the 2 billion dollar bad bet would be less regulation” or something like that?
I answered;
“that’s like wondering if water is wet”
or something akin?
I don’t have the link anymore, I think this headline comes from think progress…but sure as shooting;
“RNC Chair Calls for Less Regulation of Wall Street After $2 Billion JPMorgan Loss”,

Hereʻs a “drive by” thought. The victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic Church have a claim against the Church for the harm caused by the tolerated, indeed arguably encouraged, abuse. The Church and its institutions have filed a claim against the US Federal Government. Now the victims of sexual abuse may, repeat may, be able to place a lien on any recovery the church might get from the government. just a thought, not a recommendation.

I live in a really red state, so Jill Stein will likely get my vote.

I am sick of these right wing political organizations – like the CC and various evangelical groups – being allowed to evade their taxes, as if they were qualified to do so. As a matter of fact, about the only people NOT allowed to evade at least a substantial portion of their taxes are working stiffs, who have them ripped out of paychecks before they even see them.

And don’t forget Spain, 1936-39.

Mother Church does not own those hospitals. The hospitals are owned by the various nursing orders who founded them. That’s the way it has always been. The orders operate under charters from the Church, but they own their own property, which is not the same as the individual nuns owning anything. Thus, the sisters are very conveniently being investigated by Rome for, in the words of the letter from the Vatican, “their radical feminist’ views”. They are unhappy with the sisters for spending too much time worrying about the poor and not speaking out against abortion enough. So, they hope to squelch all that “radical feminism” and, I think, try to get their hands on the hospitals, which are pretty lucrative. But they don’t own them. In fact, in St. Louis a few years back the Jesuits sold St. Louis University Hospital and the bishop was very unhappy about it. They pretty much told him to pound sand.

I would really hate to rile some of these very hard working nuns. They do some remarkable stuff for elderly, sick, children, hungry, immigrants, etc.
I do not think they will be deterred.